Monday, April 09, 2007

A handy checklist of Nordic mysteries

I've just found this list of Nordic mysteries, published last year by the Marin County Free Library. It's almost a year old so not quite up to date, but it makes a nice shopping and reading list for crime fiction from Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland.

It states that no Finnish mysteries are available in English translation, which is not quite the case. Some of Matti Joensuu's work is available, at least in used copies, and there is always my man Pentti Kirstila, whose deadpan short story "Brown Eyes and Green Hair" is available in The Oxford Book of Detective Stories (An International Selection).

Thanks for the note. I wonder if that library plans to update its Nordic fiction list. I also have a certain respect for your ability to finish a book you did not enjoy. I lack similar patience. And thanks for the Wagner recommendation. I're read good things about it.

In the late seventies, two crime novels by Mauri Sariola were translated in the UK. Tapani Bagge will have his hardboiled novel PUHALTAJA published by Point Blank Press, under the tentative title THE JACK - once I get to do the rough translation on which the guys at Point Blank will be able to continue. There's still a crime novel by Heimo Lampi (IIRC) in English, but I think it's a vanity translation.

Another book in the same series as Priest of Evil" called IIRC Harjunpaa and the Stone Circle has been translated into English, doesn't seem to be readily available. I found Priest of Evil hard to warm to, would like to get hold of a copy of the other book to give the series another chance.

Hi, Laura. It's an odd coincidence you should happen to mention Jo Nesbo. The Devil's Star has been keeping me up nights -- reading, not tossing with nightmares -- and I should finish it tonight or tomorrow.

I also noticed Nesbo's omission from the list. The list is about a year old, which might have been before the publication of The Devil's Star in English (I don't know when Redbreast was published). Also, Nesbo might not yet be widely available in the U.S., and a public library might be constrained from ordering books from overseas.

I could not find The Devil's Star in the one U.S. chain bookstore where I looked. I bought my copy in Canada, and it was obviously a British rather than an American translation.

I'll have to read The Stone Murders first. And I have sent the Marin Country Free Library a link to this post and its comments. Perhaps that will spur them to update their list. I've published links to a number of such library lists. They make good resources.

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This blog is a proud winner of the 2009 Spinetingler Award for special services to the industry and its blogkeeper a proud former guest on Wisconsin Public Radio's Here on Earth. In civilian life I'm a copy editor in Philadelphia. When not reading crime fiction, I like to read history. When doing neither, I like to travel. When doing none of the above, I like listening to music or playing it, the latter rarely and badly.
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